Saturday, August 10, 2013

Bleg: Graffiti Epidemic?

Greenpoint’s graffiti problem is as stubborn as unchecked mold. It is everywhere, even greeting visitors to Brooklyn upon their arrival from Queens over the Pulaski Bridge. There is graffiti on brick walls and painted walls and on glass doors and poles. Trees are tagged with paint. Someone scrawled on a “Stop Bed Bugs” sign on a remote corner. In the men’s room of the Manhattan Three Decker diner, someone wrote “Shy Guy” on the plastic sign that says employees must wash their hands. And in a small room in St. Anthony of Padua Church, people have been known to scratch names or short prayers (“Please help me”) into the feet of the statues of saints.

Does getting up in Brooklyn give you street cred in Peoria?

Mr. Mann said the conventional wisdom was that most of the graffiti drawers were local, but there is another theory. Call it graffiti tourism. “People from the Midwest come here just to do graffiti” and then post pictures online, he said. “I’ve heard that.”

Anyone hear of this going on in other places? Have the old rules against getting up on "civilian" property eroded?